Most commercially available boron (B) compounds are extracted from boron-containing minerals.
About 10 different kinds of economical boron-containing minerals are present world wide, but extracting commercially available boron compounds such as borax, boric acid, and the like is expensive because processing the raw minerals requires several steps. However, it is very difficult to produce a high purity product through the process.
Generally, the method of extracting boron present in brine includes absorbing boron in the brine using an ion exchange resin to selectively absorb boron, and desorbing the same by washing it with an acid to recover it.
Alternatively, boron present at about 500 ppm in brine is concentrated to greater than or equal to about 30,000 ppm and added with sulfuric acid to deposit it in the form of boric acid to recover the same.
However, both methods have problems of high cost, low recovering rate, and process difficulty due to using a strong acid.